VALENTINES – MARK’S BIRTHDAY – MY PRECIOUS VALENTINE

ON my mind today are several things.   Tomorrow is my grandson Mark’s birthday, and I am thinking of how I loved his birth on Valentine’s Day. Tomorrow, he will be 27. He will forever be my valentine.

AND, I am working on a piece to publish about my amazing grandmother (Daddy’s mother – Mary Tallulah Dickson Jewell Loudermilk) that I find so interesting.  But I am still doing research.  It is an amazing love story that has inspired me all my life.  And I am channeling her at the moment because I need some of her strength as I struggle with several matters.  It is true.  I feel her presence, even though I know that sounds weird.  Who cares!!!  It seems to be working and I can believe what I choose. 

Meanwhile (as Stephen Colbert would say), on another subject, …I learned not to “trust” at an early age.  HOW?  And in spite of everything that happened around me, I continued to trust and to get hurt!  I was born trusting.  Are people born trusting?  Or born not trusting?  I don’t know. But I think I was born trusting because I got so hurt when I was very young.  I know.  I know.  Weird.  But I was told a different truth from reality. I was devastated when I discovered a different truth.  I could not believe THE BIG LIE.  What?  Sound familiar?  Well, it was MY big lie.  What happened?  (I always HATED it. and STILL wish it was not true.)  The problem is:  I don’t forgive or forget.  I have discovered that I hold grudges. Now, I know better, it just “happens”. Haha.  

When I was young, I sucked my right thumb.  All relatives disapproved.  I was TOO OLD to be sucking my thumb with a pink blanket with white reindeer on it.  My parents bought a wire thumb guard and taped it to my right hand.  They were afraid I would have buck teeth.  Plus, the shame of it.  What would the neighbors think?  Ugh.  So, Mother took away my pink blanket.  WHAT?????  When I craved my pink blanket, Mother told me she burned it in that back yard.    WHAT?????  How could anyone be so mean?   Scarred for life, I wept myself to sleep most nights.  I finally got over it, and no longer wanted to suck my thumb.  I was not a happy camper.

My life at 2 was over at age 3.  And I vowed to hate my mother for life.  Tried and convicted for meanness to me.  Only me.  Not my two sisters. Then, a couple of years later, I was going through a dining room chest of drawers and there it was!!!! My pink blanket.  NOT BURNED!

On some level, I understood, but I still feel that pain of betrayal.  And I am hit in the NEWS every day with that reality – THE BIG LIE.  Yes, I watch the news.  Yes, I still trust.  Yes, I still get hurt.  I think I practiced law to “grow a thicker skin” with the lies of clients, bosses, defense attorneys, witnesses, and judges.  I grew a thicker skin; but I knew that I had to keep my guard up.  AT ALL TIMES.  It is exhausting.  But I still remember that pain of betrayal throughout my life. And, I continue to work on forgiving and forgetting.  Sorry.  Memes and joke and photos that speak to me and a share or two or three. I don’t take back any of it.

Best, Jay from Paris with love.